


A Perfect Little Girl

by Lady_Phenyx



Series: Whumptober 2019 [9]
Category: Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson, 楽しいムーミン一家 | Moomin (Anime 1990)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, ask to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-27 04:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20942087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Phenyx/pseuds/Lady_Phenyx
Summary: Ninny's Aunt is cold, sarcastic, and determined to mold Ninny into a Proper Little Girl.Or, how Ninny became Invisible and how the Moomins (plus Little My and Snufkin) helped her find her voice.Whumptober Day 7: Isolation





	A Perfect Little Girl

Ninny couldn't remember her parents.

She knew she must have had some. Everyone did, at some point, even if it was only to bring them into the world. She wasn't sure how babies came into being, but they couldn't have just been left under a cabbage or brought by the stork or some such thing.

The only caretaker Ninny knew was her aunt, and a loving parent she was not.

Sometimes, in the very late hours at night when Ninny should have been asleep, when she was pretending to be asleep so her aunt wouldn't find something cutting to say about children and sleep, Ninny thought that it might have been better to have no one than to have her aunt.

She shouldn't think such things, she knew. She should be grateful. Her aunt reminded her of that often enough.

Be grateful, she had a roof over her head, clothes on her back. I didn't have to take you in, you know.

Little girls should be seen and not heard. Children should be grateful for what they had.

Surely at her age she should know by now that herds of elephants belonged outside. Oh, that was her? She couldn't tell, with the noise Ninny was making.

Someday, perhaps, Ninny would know enough to contribute an opinion, but for now she should be silent and learn.

Perhaps Ninny had thought she saw smoke. Oh she didn't? Well, then it couldn't have been her running, as only hoydens run. Ladies _walk._

Play should be _quiet._ Why did she insist so upon running? Little girls did not run and shout so. Little girls played with dolls. Or perhaps Ninny did not appreciate the dolls she had been provided with? There were plenty of little girls who would. Or were they not good enough for her, precocious little Ninny?

(Ninny did not appreciate the dolls. They were porcelain dolls, in fancy, frilly dresses, meant for display, to be looked at, not taken down and played with. Too delicate, too easily broken, to easily mussed or snagged or made messy to play with.

Not that there was time to play between chores or lessons, unless her aunt told her to play for a time. And then it was to be quiet, in her room, and after a time Ninny found she could think of nothing to play at anymore that wouldn't bring her aunt's cutting comments down upon her, except for sitting quietly in her room looking at the untouchable dolls.)

\---XXX---

Then new people moved in down the street, a family with children.

Ninny watched them through the window longingly before timidly asking if she might go play with them.

Her aunt looked out the window and sniffed. “Such uncouth children are only fit for servants, and one does not play with servants. You should know better than to even ask by now.”

So it was with the neighbor children, with the children at school (which Ninny was pulled out of to learn at home, with her aunt), with the grocer, the butcher, the baker, the mailman, with each person Ninny might encounter.

Until Ninny had no one but her aunt to speak to.

And Ninny's aunt...wasn't interested in what Ninny had to say.

Ninny tried. But asking a question was mocked for not already knowing the answer.

Ask how to do a chore? Sarcasm and mockery for not knowing. Do the chore wrong? More sarcasm, more mockery, berated for it. Surely even a child as messy as Ninny should know one starts dusting at the top. Foolish girl, even the most uneducated servant knows to properly dust, how can I be wasting so much time on your education when you don't even know how to do that?

Of course I told you how. Are you speaking back to me?

Ninny didn't know the word for it, but those questions were the beginning of the gaslighting, of making Ninny question if she really did remember anything.

Until she accepted what her aunt told her was reality.

Until she grew quieter and quieter, obeying without question.

Until a week had gone past without Ninny saying a word.

It still wasn't enough for her aunt, who was proud of how quiet Ninny was but still sharpened her tongue on her niece, who should know that mantle needed dusting, perhaps she enjoyed dust? The floors needed swept, the tea made, the dishes done, her spotless room cleaned once more. Her writing practiced, fake thank you notes written, menus created, practice for being a Proper housewife.

And no one to listen, even if she could have spoken. Her aunt wasn't abusing her, after all. She had food, and clothing, she was well cared for and not being hit or denied anything she needed. What had she to complain of?

And so it went, until one morning Ninny woke with a spot over her heart that had gone clear, so she could see straight through her body.

It spread a little each day, until her face, her arms, her legs, were gone.

Only when she had lost most of her body did her aunt notice, and she strung a bell on a ribbon, complaining as she did of the trouble Ninny gave her always, looping the ribbon around Ninny's neck.

If Ninny thought she was ignored before, things were only worse once she was all the way invisible.

And her aunt started looking for someone else to look after her.

\---XXX---

Ninny sat properly in her chair.

Just because her aunt couldn't see her didn't mean she wouldn't still scold her if she believed Ninny was doing anything else.

And by now, the thought of disobeying never came to Ninny. The woman her aunt had somehow contacted – it was complex, and Ninny did not ask questions, as children were to be silent and obey, not question – asked Ninny things, and sounded as though she cared about the answers as they waited for her aunt to join them.

What foods did Ninny like? What games did she like to play? Did she like to read? What was her favorite color?

And...even if she could have spoken, Ninny had no answers for this woman, this Too-Ticky. Did she like those things? Did she have favorites?

It had been so long since anyone had asked what Ninny liked, Ninny had forgotten entirely who Ninny was, and she was just starting to realize that. Had she, once, had a favorite color? A favorite game? A favorite...anything?

And, it seemed, Too-Ticky understood it before Ninny did, as her sunny expression clouded.

She was neutral as Ninny's aunt entered, answering the questions put to her and replying with short, calm, bland answers.

Almost as if she were eager to be out of this place, this perfect, immaculate home with its stiff furniture, its stiff decorations, its stiff paintings and lifeless air.

But eager as she was, she refused to leave until she could take Ninny with her.

\---XXX---

Ninny wasn't sure at first about living with the Moomins.

Too-Ticky reassured her again and again on the way in her kind, competent way that she wasn't leaving Ninny there because of anything Ninny did, that she did want Ninny around. That she was going to the Moomins because of her belief that if anyone could help Ninny, it would be them. That they could help her more than she, Too-Ticky, could on her own.

They were too nice. Too attentive. Too much the opposite of her aunt.

Moominmamma accepted her help with the chores, but wouldn't let her do them by herself, gently urging her to go play outside instead when Ninny tried to begin them.

So Ninny did as she was bid, gently making her way to the door and the veranda outside.

But...Ninny didn't know what to do with herself, if she wasn't doing her chores.

She sat on the veranda steps. Quiet, patient, obedient. Like a Good Girl.

Watching as Moomin and his friends played, not moving from her spot despite occasional invites, encouragement from Moominpappa, to do so. She didn't know how, and the games were loud, were running and shouting games, and Proper Ladies didn't run or shout.

Later, after it was dark and they couldn't play outside, Ninny sat in her room, not her room really but the one she had been told was hers to use.

There were proper dolls in her room, which she was encouraged to play with.

Ninny sat on the floor, obedient as ever, with one of the dolls, chosen at random. She changed the doll's clothes, pretended to feed it, and rocked it to sleep, as she remembered children doing in her books, back when she had read books for pleasure rather than to learn. Then she sat and waited for her next task.

And pretended not to notice how worried Moominmamma was over how she acted.

\---XXX---

Little My was the one to get Ninny into her first game.

“Your dumb old aunt isn't here,” she said, standing at the foot of the veranda stairs with her arms crossed, looking roughly where Ninny's face should be. “Is there any life in you at all? You never move or even try to make noise. Were you always this much of a mouse?”

“Little My!” Moomin scolded, and she shrugged.

“I'm just saying. She's never going to be visible again if she can't stand up for herself. Come play with us already. Or can't you?”

Somehow stung, Ninny cautiously stepped down from the stairs. The others crowded around her, explaining the simple rules of their game, and they were off.

And for the first time in years, Ninny had fun.

\---XXX---

That night was the first in a long time Ninny had a proper appetite, cleaning her plate and shyly holding it out for more.

Her aunt's words rang in her head, how Ladies watched what they ate and did not ask for seconds, but they were drowned out by Moominmamma's gentle happiness at the request and the joyful chatter around the table, none of it Proper Conversation but more meaningful for all that.

\---XXX---

Healing is a slow thing, one that is not a linear process but one that comes and goes, sometimes smoothly moving along until the smallest thing sets one back, sometimes rapidly changing from one way to another, sometimes so subtle one does not even realize they are healing, the cessation of pain so gradual that one doesn't realize at first that it's gone.

Once the first boundary was breached, after so long in isolation, Ninny soaked up the kindness, the caring, the fun of the Moomins like a sponge.

But then there was today. Where it was all too much.

Ninny's aunt's house had always been silent. Moomin House rarely was, unless most everyone was out of doors.

And today, it was too much. The soft surfaces, the kindness, the noise, all of it.

Ninny craved it, but today, she also couldn't take it anymore, and in a panic fled the house.

She found herself hiding by the bridge, trembling.

She couldn't go back to the house. She'd run from it, they had to be angry. She hadn't asked permission to leave, they had to be disappointed, there would be pointed comments waiting for her, for running, for leaving, all of it.

And now her dress, the pretty dress Moominmamma had worked so hard on, had stayed up all night to sew for her, was dirty from the mud under the bridge. She was dirty. Ladies weren't supposed to get dirty.

Ninny was too deep in her spiral to notice when he arrived, but she faintly heard something in her silent, locked panic, eventually following the sound of music back to reality.

There was someone in green sitting on the bank...Moomin's friend Snufkin, she realized after a moment. They hadn't been introduced, but with the way Moomin called Snufkin's name whenever he saw the vagabond, the way Moomin talked about Snufkin, everyone who stayed at Moomin House knew about him by their second day.

Snufkin didn't say anything, didn't look towards Ninny, simply kept playing his harmonica as she cried, released from her emotional lock down and finally able to let the tears flow.

Eventually she crawled out to sit next to him, neither of them looking at the other as Snufkin continued to play.

The music was soothing, and the fact that he didn't speak to her, as if they were both alone while together, silently supportive, helped her to calm.

As the shadows lengthened, the sun beginning to set, Snufkin lowered the harmonica and stood. “Ready to go back?” he asked, holding out a paw to Ninny. “Dinner's probably ready by now.”

She looked down at her dress and back to Snufkin. He smiled faintly and held out his own smock, which was almost as dirty as her muddy dress.

But...it was different, didn't he understand? She was supposed to grow up to be a Lady, and...

Looking up into Snufkin's eyes, Ninny decided that maybe, just maybe, he did understand.

Ninny bit her lip, though he couldn't see it, and put her paw in his, heading back to the house.

\---XXX---

There was a fuss, as Ninny had feared...but it was gentle, without a sarcastic comment or scold in sight, but with concern over her emotions, if she was feeling better or needed more time to herself. And yes, at the state of her dress, but gentle, laughing, concerned but understanding. A reminder that it was clothing, and clothing could be cleaned, just as she could. What was life without a little mud now and again?

And Snufkin was fussed over just as much as she, though he lived on his own and could take care of himself, was more than old enough to not need it, teased gently over how he had gotten himself into such a state.

It was...good. They weren't fussing over her because she was broken or invisible, it was just how they were, and this proved it.

Given the little smile Snufkin wore when he glanced over at her during all of the fussing, the towels and the change of clothing and the offers of hot drinks, Ninny suspected he was letting them fuss on purpose, to prove that exact point.

\---XXX---

Ninny had thought her aunt was terrible, but maybe, there weren't other people like her in the world.

She'd been wrong.

Stinky was the worst! The absolute worst!

She'd been so frightened, to find herself tumbling into the tiny cave and trapped inside...but it had helped her find her voice, the strength too yell, which she hadn't had in longer than she could remember.

And when she found out what Snufkin and Moomin and Little My, Snorkmaiden and Sniff, had done to get back at Stinky, well...

Was this what it was like to have siblings? she wondered.

If it was...Ninny liked it.

\---XXX---

The sea was so big, no matter how many times she visited it with the Moomins Ninny thought she would never get over a small fright over how big and uncaring it was.

Snufkin loved it, she knew. One didn't live in a house with Moomin long and not learn about all his friends. It took away a little of the fright, to hear it spoken of the way Snufkin did, but it still scared her, just a little.

Right now, her fears were gone, replaced by the fiercest anger she'd ever felt in her life.

Ninny had seen enough of Little My's pranks to learn about pranking. Little My liked to skirt the line between good pranks and mean ones, but the one Moominpappa was going to pull on Moominmamma wasn't a prank at all, it was just mean!

...it was pretty funny when he fell in, though. And though he yelled at her, Ninny couldn't stop laughing.

She loved him! She loved him so much, and Moominmamma, and Little My, and all of them! And they loved her, and she didn't have to listen to the nasty voice of her aunt in her head anymore.

She didn't have to be the perfect child her aunt wanted. She didn't have to be what anybody wanted.

She could be Ninny, and it was up to her to decide who Ninny was.

And nobody else got a say in the matter anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> If Moominmamma can be Ninny's mother figure, then Moomin, Little My, and Snufkin can be her siblings. ;)


End file.
